MACHETE rekalled...

MACHETE is director Robert Rodriguez's homage to the exploitation genre expanded from a trailer originally created for his other homage to the grindhouse genre, Planet Terror. This film does not succeed in being as entertaining as his previous effort. In the opening minutes of the film we see the main character; Machete being played by Danny Trejo, doing what we would expect from a bad ass that we saw from the trailer and I thought I was in for a great ride. Too bad the film peaked in those opening moments, after that we get a increasingly less entertaining movie from scene to scene. Maybe he had a problem of being painted into a corner feeling like had to have every scene from the fake trailer in the real movie and some of these made no sense and destroyed the flow of the film. Generally the scenes from the fake trailer were more interesting that everything else and the "used film" look was not consistent which seemed to be a theme. It was pretty jarring to see the actual height of Danny Trejo in establishing shots, he even appeared uncomfortable in some scenes, he just felt under used and I think they could have had him do more, show more emotion. The one stand out of the film was the performance of Jeff Fahey, he is the perfect actor for this style of film. I would love to see him in more, he stands out in anything he does. Other than that this film is forgettable, it would be better just to see Planet Terror again.